Big Bang or Big Chill? The ‘Quantum Graphity’ theory

August 21, 2012

The start of the Universe should be modeled not as a Big Bang but more like water freezing into ice, according to a team of theoretical physicists at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University.

They suggest that by investigating the cracks and crevices common to all crystals — including ice — our understanding of the nature of the Universe could be revolutionized.

Hidden patterns

Albert Einstein assumed that space and time were continuous and flowed smoothly, but we now believe that this assumption may not be valid at very small scales, said Project lead researcher James Q. Quach.

“A new theory, known as Quantum Graphity, suggests that space may be made up of indivisible building blocks, like tiny atoms,” he said. “These indivisible blocks can be thought about as similar to pixels that make up an image on a screen. The challenge has been that these building blocks of space are very small, and so impossible to see directly.”

Observable imaging effects?

However Quach and his colleagues believe they may have figured out a way to see them indirectly.

“Think of the early universe as being like a liquid,” he said. “Then as the universe cools, it ‘crystallizes’ into the three spatial and one time dimension that we see today. Theorized this way, as the Universe cools, we would expect that cracks should form, similar to the way cracks are formed when water freezes into ice.”

RMIT University research team member Associate Professor Andrew Greentree said some of these defects might be visible. “Light and other particles would bend or reflect off such defects, and therefore in theory we should be able to detect these effects,” he said. These structures should have observable background-independent consequences, including scattering, double imaging, and gravitational lensing-like effects, the scientists say in their paper.

The team has calculated some of these effects and if their predictions are experimentally verified, the question as to whether space is smooth or constructed out of tiny indivisible parts will be solved once and for all.

Comments (36)

it will be true , that space is made of small particle, i called it space bubbles , start of universe was from nothing. these bubbles were created frm nothing , matter and anti matter were form by overlap of bubbles, nothing mean zero, in present there is no zero, nothing was the origin n infinity will be the end of universe, nothing else .

Have been reading about Craig Hogan and his experiment about a holographic universe. There Does not seem to be any way to find out the results of these experiments. If you have any known results, please enlighten us. Thank you, Larry.G

hmm when i hear indivisible blocks the idea of the aether comes to my mind, which was first described by the ancient greeks, after all the Universe is nothing more but information transferred and modified especially if you come to quantum theory, space is just propagation and modification of information and the system relies on specific rules which within again underly specific patterns in which we can find the answers we are searching.

I think ultimately that the “pixel theory” is contrary to the pattern we experience with space, because each time we thought we found the last piece, we discovered that it is made up of tinyer pieces or charges. This is also true to the maxima of the universe like galaxies, galaxy clusters, galaxy cluster clusters and so on ad infinitum?

There is a lot to come and i think we barely scratched the surface of our universe.

the idea of the universe being ‘liquid’ and freezing into solidity, feels like the idea of early reality being a fluid, amorphous state of pure generic potential, which ‘resolved’ into a measurable, particle-based state at some stage, the way a quantum wave state collapses.

perhaps some strange attractor served to resolve the potential universe around it, the way a single ice crystal in a freezing-point liquid resolves the water around it into more ice crystals, which then spreads as a chain reaction throughout the volume. perhaps complexity itself was enough to resolve the potential universe. maybe some complexity at the edge of a chaotic system in the early universe was enough to ‘drag’ reality into existence.

If you compress something it heats up. Expand something it cools down. No doubt that the expansion of the universe has caused the quark gluon soup to cool. The real question is why that should behave like water and crack.

Would the indivisible bits of Quantum Graphity be the strings of string theory? The smallest bits of energy jiggling and interacting with each other in ways that create different phases such that there can be phase transitions and phase boundaries.

Good question, but this is saying the fabric of space is made up of atomic (in the sense of indivisible base units) pieces. String theory suggests that superstrings are the atomic base units of fundamental particles, and that their vibrations in 11vdimensions of spacetime determine the properties of these particles. I am skeptical of this theory but think string theory might be valid.

The idea of a pixelated universe is something iv thought about for a few years now but i have no idea how it would work. My idea comes from a consequence of relativity. This consequence is a contradiction between the relativistic point of view of an observer and the relativistic point of view of a photon.
Imagine a photon emitted from the surface of a distant star, from the perspective of the photon, its emission and absorption is instantaneous (due to time dilation effects). However, we observe that it takes years for the light to reach our eye.
This contradiction can be explained a couple of ways (maybe more), 1, upon emission of a photon, space-time is curved to such an extent as to make the emission atom and absorption atoms occupy the same space-time, or 2, the photon emitted moves along a path of pixels.
Both of these possibilities allow the contradiction between points of view to exist.

I don’t see how the pixels would solve the time issues. I’m curious as to if these pixels have behaved as the universe has expanded. When the universe was the size of a proton, were these pixels equally compressed? Do the pixels remain the same size, and thusly as the universe expands, it is expressed with a greater number of pixels. If it is like a image on a screen, that takes up a larger portion of the screen, then it implies the pixels were there before the universe began, and that it is more like a movie than reality. That’s very similar to my view. I think of the pixels like the stings in string theory, but I say even that is an illusion created by infinite time and infinte space(which implies infinite intelligence). That the strings are the holodeck that plays infinities home movies on!

Pixels can solve the time issues if you consider a “pixel” to be just like an atom.
A photon, as it moves between pixels/atoms, experiences zero time but when it is absorbed by a pixel/atom (when the photons energy is transferred to the pixel) it has stopped moving, It then experiences time (“existing” as an increase in energy state of the pixel/atom). It is then re-emitted down the line, where its time stops, until reabsorbed by the next pixel/atom and so on.
The question about pixel compress-ability/expand-ability is intriguing, As it could be the end of my pixel idea, I think perhaps you eluded to a possible answer earlier. Virtual particles (zero point energy). The universe is teaming with virtual particles, zipping in and out of existence, its quite possible that these virtual particles are what makes the 3d pixel reality possible. I suppose the question is, weather or not the density of virtual particles in space remains constant or not.

The same problem with the initial state of the pixels can be applied to strings. I´ve always wondered that if the universe is filled with these tiny vibrating strings, then where did they come from? Or where they already here and are they the base on which the big bang/chill expansion took place?

It was difficult enough finding the Higgs Boson, let along trying to ascertain the alleged cracks in the plenum. Assumptions are being made here about the Hubble constant increasing to the point of tearing apart matter, who said that? The universe itself may just turn inside out at some point, but it’s all speculation. We need numbers and geometry here, not all this “Philosophy”, which is worthless. Its more plausable that our universe was spawned from another universe that still exists, thus supplying the “Fluid” That coalesced into the bricks of space time…but then im doing what I accuse others of doing.

See!!! It was fun!!! We have this brain that tries to make sense of things. Einstein came up with his theories from mind exercises. I’m not saying anyone here is Einstein, but it stretches those old neurons. We’ve been asking questions like these since we started making campfires. We just ask deeper questions and get deeper answers. The ultimate test of any idea is if can predict something. Like when relativity predicted the bending of light by gravity. Even the way he said it was happening, that it bent the fabric of space, was beautifully proven with black holes. That in and of it self wasn’t seen indirectly or directly, until many years after he postulated them. Defiantly head scratching stuff. Our talk is probably no more useful than talking about the weather, or sports, or politics, but we love to do those anyway!

See kurzweil editorial july 20 2012 , A new wrinkle in space-time and all editorials from this article. they are regarding collisions in space. The collider is making collisions in space of comparable magnitude, on a smaller scale. You will have to use your mind to see these are comparable. I am not trying to cause disturbances, I just don!t want to wake up some morning with no Earth to call home.

John, you are right. Zero and infinity are not natural number in ancient Chinese natural philosophy. The start of universe is “non words” and written by Laozi about 2500 years ago. Space and time are unified under one dimensional universe. Quanta can only be found in 4 or above dimensional universe.

Infinity? Zero? Nonwords? I don’t think that view is sustainable as an argument. Paradoxical yes,. Unfathomable to a finite mind yes. Nowhere where our tech will take us, we are hemmed in by the cattle pen of the horizon. Like a never ending nautilus shell, as soon as we define the barriers of one compartment, we discover another one to be explored.

Why a lower limit? It is said that the fabric of space is expanding. That at so point even atoms will be ripped apart. It is also said that at the bogging our universe was infinitesimally small( you like how I’m using the word infinity?). In my eyes that implies a scale of relativity. When it was so small, what was around it? When it gets so huge that it rips apart nuclear forces, how much larger will it go? It’s all just a series of realativities or relationships. In my view, everything springs up from infinity. Like virtual particles in empty space. True space isn’t any particular thing. It could be an antimatter universe, or any other imaginable or unimaginable thing, not necessarily what we experience in this universe. That’s the canvas that I think reality is ” painted” on. That it really is a holodeck of sorts, playing out the informational relationships that we perceive.

@Bri, but we all have finite minds, and anything unfathomable is just noise bloating the dictionary, i.e. “non words”. The idea of nothing just does not make sense since you cannot imagine absolute nothing, it is undefinable. Even empty space allows movement but nothing would not, so what is it? Some sort of mental delusion I say. Equally true for infinity and continuity which allows infinite division of space.

I come to my theories from trying to make sense of my own experiences. I find those words best address those issues, so to me they have tremendous meaning. You don’t have to agree, but I think they are key to understanding the nature of reality.

“THE START of the universe”? So far as I have noticed, matters proceed by transitions, from one damned thing to another. We can loosely speak of “the start of the automobile industry”, and mention the advent of the internal combustion engine in that regard, but fire and the wheel preceded the Model T, and I find the use of “start” startling insofar as it applies to everything, and not merely some transitional phase, whether dramatic (as postulated), or not.

This is the most interesting idea in a long time. Continuity is unimaginable like infinity and zero, and these are undefinable “non words” in my opinion. The only thing that makes sense is discreteness, indivisible building blocks, as quantum theory already showed for other cases, so why should space and time be any different.